Mission 101--the Operational Centres: the hidden Australian involvement in Ethiopia--WW2 and the formation of the Special Operations Executive, "SOE".

Preface

Mission 101 started its days as a covert operation planned by Britain's Military Intelligence community MI(R). The Mission was designed to open a second front in North Africa by inciting rebellion against the Italian occupiers of Ethiopia with the objective of re-installing the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Sellaisse, onto the Ethiopian throne. Undoubtedly part of the motivation for Mission 101 was the appeasement of a disillusioned British population who had, in general, never accepted the British political acquiescence to the Italian invasion of 1935/6. Mission 101 ended its days as Gideon Force, which was part of the Allied invasion force that eventually entered the Ethiopian Capital, Addis Abebba in May 1941, thereby ending the Italian colonial era.

While Australia's involvement in North Africa and the Middle East during WW2 is well known, our involvement in East Africa is almost completely forgotten.

According to one writer on the East African campaign, Michael Glover in An Improvised War, there were nine Australians involved in the campaign. This article will briefly mention the contribution of Australian "Master Spy", Arnold Wienholt (2) and discuss the activities of the five Australians that made up the No. 1 Operational Centre.

The Operational Centres

Mission 101 has an interesting history. It was a military operation conceived by Britain against a sovereign state (Italian Ethiopia) before it had entered a state of war with that country--Italy not entering the war until 10 June 1940. In May 1939, British and French intelligence officers met secretly in Aden to consider the question of stirring up trouble in Ethiopia. The French (General Le Gentilhomme) were somewhat hesitant about initiating the revolt, but were keen to support one should a revolt break out. The British were keener; they had actually been training Ethiopian guerrillas in the Sudan since the 1935/36 Italian--Ethiopian War, despite their public pronouncements to the contrary. Accordingly they appointed Lt Col Dan Sandford, to commence work on Mission 101. (3) Sanford arrived in Khartoum in October 1939 and immediately started organising the Ethiopian exiles and collecting weapons and ammunition in several stores, within Sudan, along the Ethiopian Border. This was all part of a British Government strategy designed to relieve pressure on the Allied forces in North Africa. This strategy--named Mission 101--had as its aim the reinstatement of the exiled Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie, onto his throne by means of a popular uprising inside Ethiopia. (4) To implement this plan, the British War Cabinet appointed Lt. Col Dan Sandford, a former British Consul to Abyssinia, who, in retirement, had stayed on in Abyssinia after he had completed his term of office. Like many Europeans he left the country when the Italians invaded in 1935. Sandford's expert knowledge together with that of Major Robert E. Cheesman (5), another former Consul was the basis on which this high-risk operation was founded. Initially working in London, the two men put together an irregular force of experienced former guerilla war fighters and old Ethiopia hands. A significant number of these were former journalists, hunters, bushmen and adventurers. Arnold Wienholt, a former Queensland Federal Politician and alleged Red Cross worker during the Italian--Ethiopian War (1935-36) was attached to Mission 101 as an Intelligence Officer. Arnold Wienholt had in fact been working for British Military Intelligence since at least 1913.

It appears that Mission 101 was probably the first of the covert operations that the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was to run throughout the war. Douglas Dodds-Parker, an SOE Mission Commander, describes how Mission 101 had its gestation in his British Intelligence activities in the Sudan and Ethiopia during the Italian Ethiopian War. Unfortunately many of SOE's records are unavailable. As Dodds-Parker states in 1984;

   Few records of SOE's organisation have survived. Instinct and
   training required minimum records and early destruction when outside
   the UK. There was little opportunity, even had regulations allowed,
   to keep diaries. Only Field Marshals and senior officials seemed,
   from their post war publications, to have been beyond the risk of
   courts martial. (6)

Foot in his "Official" history of the SOE, confirms that Mission 101 was instigated by MI(R) and then controlled by SOE in London. He also notes that the RAF operation that flew Wingate into Ethiopia to meet with Sanford on 20 November 1940 was "the RAF's first successful operation for SOE" and that the subsequent pick-up was SOE's "first pick-up operation." (7)

Allied forces in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East were under the control of General Archibald Wavell who seems to have been the originator of the scheme. He called Sandford out of retirement in August 1939, promoted him to Colonel and appointed him in charge of the Ethiopian Section within Middle Eastern Intelligence (M12). Sandford put together a team comprising Capt R A Critchley (GSO3) (8), A/Major D H Nott (DAA&QMG), A/Capt T M Foley (Royal Engineers), A/Capt C B Drew (surgeon and medical officer), S/Sgt (later CSM) G S Grey (radio specialist), Maj Count A W D Bentinck (GSO2), 2nd Lt A Wienholt (Intelligence Office), S/Sgt G S Rees and Cpl Frost. Despite detailed planning having begun as early as January 1940, official appointments were delayed, for political reasons until Italy entered the war on the 10 June 1940. (9) Wienholt who was in Aden at the time immediately flew to Karthoum, arriving there on the 20 June to join Mission 101.

The plan called for a number of "Operational Centres" to be set up under British or Australian officers who together with four NCOs and a group of some thirty Ethiopians would infiltrate into Ethiopia. (10) There they would attach themselves to various guerrilla groups operating within that country to act as coordinators and to supply the guerrillas with arms and advice. The Mission's objective being to stir up popular revolts so that the Emperor would be able to return.

The first of these Operational Centres, called the No. 1 (Australian) Operational Centre was sent into Ethiopia's Gojjam Province in mid 1940. (11) This unit, sometimes called Brown's No. 1 Intelligence and Operational Centre, was under the command of Lt Allan H. Brown formerly of the 2nd/1st Field Regiment, Division supported by Sgts W.R. Howell, R.C. Wood, E.M. Body and J.K. Burke. (12)

The Ethiopian component of Brown's No. 1 Operational Centre was made up from elements of the 1st Ethiopian Battalion, recruited inside the Sudan (13). This Battalion was considered to be of "indifferent quality" and was disbanded, the better elements of it being assigned to Brown.

Brown's Operational Centre was infiltrated into Ethiopia in the vicinity of Dinder. Dodds-Parker was to later note of them that;

   They were to add distinction to the ANZAC reputation for bravery and
   endurance, and to return home safely.

He also noted that:

   I had one other difficulty with them. Months later a letter arrived
   from the Game Warden's Office, saying that they had shot, without a
   licence, a giraffe with a Bren gun and an elephant with a Boys
   anti-tank rifle. The fine was 5.14 [pounds sterling]

It was the success of these Operational Centres that led to them being the modus operandi of the SOE in the Balkans and Italy.

In July 1940, Sandford decided that the Headquarters of Mission 101 should establish itself inside Ethiopia. Consequently the Mission HQ was split into three parts. Sandford and his party (15) infiltrated into Ethiopia on the 12 August crossing the border at Limona, 12 miles south of Metemma and established himself near Mount Belaya, Maj Count A W D Bentinck, Sandford's GSO2, followed three weeks later in early September. The third group led by Wienholt was delayed by a lack of pack animals and left shortly afterwards and attempted to cross the border into Ethiopia.

The attempt by Mission 101 to infiltrate into Ethiopia had been leaked to the Italian forces. The Italian, Captain Giovanni Braca and his irregulars, assisted by the local Gumz tribesmen were actively patrolling the border region. They were based at the Ethiopian border town of Metemma with detachments at Kwara and Matabia. Gallabat, the corresponding border town to Metemma on the Sudan side of the border had been attacked and taken by the Italians on the 5 July.

The Italians ambushed a group of Patriots (as the Ethiopian guerillas were called) at Limona on their way to rendezvous with Sandford. When he heard this news, Wilfred Thesiger of the Eastern Arab Corps near Gallabat chased after Sandford on his horse and warned him that the mission had been compromised. (16) Sandford altered his route and by zigzagging and avoiding all villages he managed to successfully enter Ethiopia where he intended to establish his HQ at Sakala.

Wienholt left Khartoum to infiltrate into Ethiopia via Gedaref and the border town of Gallabat. Wienholt and his party of three men and eight donkeys left Khor Otrub (seven miles from Gallabat) on 31 August 1940 and nothing was heard of him until a telegram was received in Khartoum from the military operating in the vicinity of Gallabat. The telegram reported the arrival of two of Wienholt's native servants into the camp with the news that they had been ambushed by an Italian patrol and that Wienholt had been shot and was missing.

Bearing in mind the difficulties that Sandford had encountered crossing into Ethiopia, Wienholt planned to take a different route. Leaving Khor Otrub heading for Kwara, he passed south of the newly established Italian defence post at Matabia. Between Matabia and Kwara, Italian forces from the Matabia post attacked his camp one morning as he and his men were loading the pack animals. He and his men scattered and Wienholt was last seen running into the bush holding his side.

Wienholt's fate remained unknown until September 1941, although his wife had been informed that Wienholt was "missing presumed dead". In July 1941 a reconnaissance party visited the area to investigate his disappearance. The party found his camp site and questioned the local natives who informed them that Wienholt's camp had been attacked early on the morning of the 10 September 1940 whilst they were packing up. Wienholt had two days previously observed Italian officers patrolling in the district. Apparently the Italians picked up Wienholt's tracks and recruited local tribesmen to assist in the attack on his camp. A party of 38 men, 18 Italian soldiers and 20 tribesmen attacked while Wienholt was packing up camp. Wienholt was shot in the side and observed running away in the bush. A later patrol in September 1941 found some human remains, presumed to be Wienholt's, together with some of his gear in the general location where he was last seen. (17)

Clearly Wienholt had failed to place out a sentry to give advance warning. This resulted in him being fatally wounded in circumstances reminiscent of those in which he was attacked and shot by a German patrol in 1917 where he had again neglected his own advice as given in his book The Work of a Scout. (18)

The above has been the standard version put out by English or Allied writers when discussing Wienholt's death. However, the Italians have always maintained that he was executed as a spy, after being discovered within their territory, out of uniform in charge of a convoy running guns, ammunition and money to insurgents.

Interestingly the "Official" history of SOE written by M R D Foot, disclosed for the first time in an British publication that

   Wienholt, last seen by his own side crawling badly wounded into the
   bush after his convoy had been ambushed by some Italians of
   enterprise, was captured by them, and--though in uniform--sentenced
   to be shot; he faced his firing party calmly, wrapped in a Union
   Jack. (19)

Wienholt was officially listed as died of wounds received in the action of 10 September 1940. He was most likely the first SOE agent killed by the enemy during WW2.

When Wingate visited Sandford inside Ethiopia in November 1940 he discussed among other matters the proposals for the formation of the Intelligence Centres. (20)

The official titles and the (European) staffing levels that I have been able to determine of these operational centres is shown below. All Operational Centres were located within Ethiopia by the end of February 1941. However most centres, apart from the No. 1 (Australian) Operational Centre and the No. 2 (Canadian) Operational Centre saw very little action.

Events in Ethiopia rapidly moved beyond the original aim of the Operational and Intelligence Centres. By early 1941, a full scale invasion of Ethiopia was underway. Lt Col Wingate, who had been appointed "Commander British and Ethiopian Forces", reorganised the Operational Centres into the main strike components of Gideon Force. (21) Gideon Force was to be one of the most unusual armies to take the field in modern times. It numbered about 1800 men of whom less than 100 were of European origin. The Europeans were a motley bunch of generally tough older men, who had been playing around in Africa for decades. Transport was the province of a French Canadian named Le Blanc who had built roads across Africa for American oil exploration companies; explosives and demolition were the province of Tim Foley, an Irish Australian who was managing a gold mine in Eritrea when war broke out. Another was Guy "Tough Tim" Turrall, a Cornish geophysicist, with a profound knowledge of French classical literature, who had prospected for oil in most parts of the world from Somaliland to Venezuela. (22) George Steer (given the title of "Field Propaganda Officer), who had made his name during the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, handled propaganda. To assist in these aims, he carted a printing press on the back of a donkey throughout the campaign. Gideon Force commenced its advance, supported by 15,000 camels, on the Ethiopian capital on the 19 February 1941. But that is another story.

No. 1 (Australian) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt Allan H. Brown, 2/1st Field Regt RAA 

NCOs--Sgts W.R. Howell, R.C. Wood, E.M. Body, J.K. Burke

No. 2 (Royal Artillery) Operational Centre

OIC--Captain MacKay, Canadian Forces. Wounded (shot through the stomach) 18 March 1941 and evacuated. Replaced by Lt Neil L.D. McLean on the 7 April 1941.

NCOs--Sergeants Morrow, Smith, Powell, McLure, King (killed in action)

The NCOs were recruited in Egypt from the North Irish Anti Aircraft Regiment. The efforts of this centre are described in Xan Fielding's 1990 biography of Neil McLean, One Man in his Time. (23) Following the completion of Mission 101, McLean was attached to SOE's operations in Albania.

No. 3 (Beds & Herts) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt Gordon Naylor; NCOs--Sergeant Cannon, Goode, Lewis, Bartlett

No. 4 (Kings Own) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt Bathgate, King's Own; NCOs--Not known

No. 5 (13/18 Hussars and Coldstream Guards) Operational Centre (24)

OIC--Captain Van der Post, South African Army, later succeeded by Lt W.E.D. Allen NCOs--Sgts Thornton, MacDonald (13/18 Hussars), Pringle, Harrison Edge (Cold Guards)

No. 6 (The Buffs) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt Welsh; NCOs--Sgt. Carr, others not known.

No. 7 (Household Cavalry) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt Neil L.D. McLean, Royal Scots Greys 

NCOs--Sergeants Bain, Brown, Blakeman, Fairhall, Saunders

No. 8 (Yorks Hussars) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt Stanton; NCOs--Not known

No. 9 (North Somerset Yeomanry) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt Cope, NCOs--Not known

No. 10 (Household Cavalry) Operational Centre

OIC--Lt M.L. Pilkington (25); NCOs--Sergeant Mills, Strachan, Preedy, Johnston, West

Service of the No. 1 (Australian) Operational and Intelligence Centre (26)

21 December 1940. Departed Khartoum on 21 December 1940 and arrived at Mission 101 HQ in February 1941. They were attached to Bimbashi Thesiger's group (Sudan Defence Force)

20 February 1941 Night attack on the Italian fort at Engiabara. The attack was not a success due to the lack of support from Mangasha Jemberie, whose men contended that the Italians were about to evacuate the fort anyway. Their intelligence proved correct and the Italians moved out the following day under the cover of the Garrison from Burye under Col. Natale.

5 March. Captured and occupied Burye before handing it over to local Patriots and joined Gideon Force for the invasion of Eritrea.

15-25 March. (about) In action (machine gunning) around Guilt and laying land mines along the road leading from that position into Debra Marcos.

31 March. Italian troops retreating from Fort Emmanuel to Gulit lost two lorries to the land mines laid by Brown. In the sharp action that followed the Italians lost another 23 men killed.

20-24 April. Took part in operations against Mota (about 100 kms north of Debra Markos). Lt. Brown and Sgt Burke opened the attack on Mota some days prior to the arrival of the main force under Col Boustead.

25 April. Escorted the prisoners back to Debra Markos.

(2) The extraordinary career of "Master Spy" Arnold Wienholt, through three wars is the subject of a major paper being prepared by Geoff Blackburn. To my knowledge, Arnold Wienholt is the only Australian Federal Politician to have been shot as a spy by enemy forces.

(3) Mission 101 was named after Fuse 101, which was a percussion-type fuse used widely by the Royal Artillery in many calibres of guns before and dining WWII. It was intended that Mission 101 would be the "fuse" that would ignite the Ethiopian revolt. Mission 101 was the forerunner of Gideon Force, which was formed in February 1941 from some elements of Mission 101 and liberated Ethiopia that year from the Italians. Orde Wingate, who was later to become famous for his Chindits in Burma, originally the liaison officer in Khartoum effectively took command of Mission 101 as Sandford and the remainder of the command were basically out of touch within Ethiopia. On the 20 September 1940, Wingate flew into the Gojjam Plateau to meet with Sandford. This hazardous flight, landing on a roughly cleared bush strip at the Mission 101 camp was piloted by a volunteer, Flight Lieutenant Collis who was awarded the DFC for undertaking this mission.

(4) For the official account of Mission 101 see; The Abyssinian Campaigns (Anon.) chapters 11-13 pp. 56-67. Reginald Kirby, the war time novelist, wrote an interesting story titled Mission 101. In this novel the Italians ambush the central character, David Bannister--who appears to be based on Wienholt--as he attempts to cross the border into Ethiopia. Like Wienholt he is wounded. However, unlike Wienholt he survives his wound and goes on to complete other adventures in typical Wienholtian style.

(5) Cheesman published his memoirs in two books as:

* Cheesman, Major R.E. In Unknown Arabia (Macmillan & Co), London, 1926, pp xx, 447 with map * Cheesman, Major R.E. (1936) Lake Tana and the Blue Nile. An Abyssinian Conquest (Macmillan & Co), London, 1936. pp. xiv, 400, with two folding maps. Facsimile reissued in 1986 by Frank Cass & Co, London

Cheesman's role was to set up and maintain an Intelligence Bureau in Khartoum.

(6) Dodds-Parker, (1984) p. 4

(7) Foot (1984) pp. 175-76, 185-191

(8) After the war, Lt Col Ronald Ashton Critchley DSO MC farmed in Zambia before moving to Western Australia where he died at Keysbrook, WA on the 27 August 1999 aged 93 years. Obituary--The Times (London) 29 September 1999.

(9) The first Mission 101 incursions into Ethiopia were by a group of British Intelligence agents who crossed the Sudanese Border into Ethiopia on 10 May 1940--fully a month before Italy entered the war. Their task was to contact local chieftains and to give them a message from the GOC of the British Forces in the Sudan, General Sir William Platt. The message in part read "Peace be with you, England and Italy are now at War. We have decided to help you in every way to destroy the common enemy. If you are in need of rifles, ammunition, food or clothing, send as many men and animals as you can spare to the place where our messengers will tell you." Platt was clearly being liberal with the truth here.

(10) According to Dodds-Parker each Operational Centre was accompanied by 100 Sudanese, each armed with an American rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition. See Dodds-Parker (1984) p. 57. There were to eventually be 10 Operational Centres. Others were led by 'Billy' Maclean, Basil Ringrose and W. (Bill) E. D. Allen.

(11) Little has been written about the activities of the Operational Centres. The sole comment in the official Australian war history is one sentence in a footnote (fn. 7) in Long, G. To Bengahzi (1951) p. 282. All were from N.S.W. Only No. 1 Operational Centre was Australian manned. The others were all British manned.

(12) The staff is that Lt Alan Brown, a pro-war bank employee and militia officer, who, while serving in Palestine, met an Ethiopian Coptic Priest who convinced him to assist the Ethiopian Patriots. Brown volunteered and was accepted for Mission 101. He selected four sergeants from the 2nd/1st Field Regiment 6th Australian Division and convinced them into accompanying him. They were: Sgt. E.M (Ted) Body; Sgt J.R. Burke; Sgt W.F. Howell; and Sgt R.C. Wood. At the completion of Operation Gideon, the Centres were disbanded and the men rejoined the Australian 6th Division. All four sergeants were commissioned on return to the Division. Before the outbreak of war all had been working on sheep and cattle properties. Howell was later killed in action at Buna, Papua, in 1942. Steer, G. (1942), p. 191, relates an entertaining story about Burke with respect to the night after the capture of the fort at Mota in Gojam province. "That night (of the capture of Mota) Sgt. Burke, who had played full back for Australia, rushed into (Col.) Hugh's (Boustead) room and asked him straight and clear, 'Who has won this bloody war, sir, us or them?' 'It looks like us,' said Hugh sleepily. 'That's just what it doesn't look like,' answered Burke, and took him along to a large room where the Italian officers had made themselves comfortable for the night, each with his Ethiopian lady friend." Burke had played, prewar, as full back for the Warratahs (NSW team) against the New Zealand 'All Blacks'

(13) The plan had been to raise four Ethiopian Battalions from the Ethiopian refugees that were located within the Sudan and Kenya. These Battalions were to accompany the Ethiopian Emperor on his expedition into Ethiopia. However, only the 2nd Battalion, from Kenya, was ready to take the field with the Emperor. The 3rd later saw action around Chilga, near Lake Tana and the 4th was never raised.

(14) Dodds-Parker (1984) p. 64

(15) Sandford's party comprised of Capts Critchley (GSO 3) and Drew (Medical Officer), CSM Grey (Radio Specialist) and Cpl Whitmore.

(16) Wilfred Thesiger is arguably the Richard Burton of the 20th century. Born in Addis Ababa in 1910 with an impeccable colonial family lineage he was educated at Eton and Oxford where he gained a boxing blue. A noted Arabist he undertook expeditions to the Danakil (1930-34) which he describes in his The Danakil Diary, Journeys through Abyssinia 1930-34, London 1996. He spent 1935-1937 in the Sudan Political Service followed by service in the Eastern Arab Corps, Sudan Defence Force, before joining Mission 101 where he replaced Lt. Col. Ron Critchley. He afterwards became a SOE operative in Syria. Between 1945 and 1950 he lived with the nomadic Arabs in the "Empty Quarter" of Saudi Arabia. During this time he crossed the "Empty Quarter" twice as well as the Mountains of Oman. These experiences are described in his book Arabian Sands--The Remarkable true story of one of the last great adventures of modern times. (Dutton), New York & London. He then spent seven years living with the Marsh Arabs in Iraq. These experiences are described in The Marsh Arabs London 1964. He also wrote several limited edition autobiographies (160 copies); Desert, Marsh and Mountain. The World of a Nomad (Collins), London 1979; followed by The Last Nomad. One Man's Forty Years Adventure in the Worlds most Remote Deserts, Mountains and Marshes. (Dutton), New York & London 1986; and, The Life of my Choice (Collins), London 1987. He also wrote Among the Mountains: Travels through Asia Harper Collins, London 1998.

(17) The Statutory Declarations made by the patrol leader and Major Cheesman, the General Staff Officer, are reproduced in full in Grabs, C.B. (1987) Australian and a Hero pp. 179-183 and this is probably the easiest source from which to obtain these documents. The official history, The Abyssinian Campaigns, says: "Another officer of the Mission was caught by an Italian patrol in the border bush, his caravan scattered and he himself never heard of again." (p.57). Interestingly, the author spent several months during 1994 prospecting an area not far from where Wienholt was killed. Several of the older locals referred to the Australian that was killed in the area.

(18) Wienholt (1923) The Work of a Scout 1923). See the section on setting up a camp at pp. 68-69.

(19) Foot (1984) p 187. Foot notes that the official British position was that Wienholt would have been in uniform. Of course Foot's inclusion of Wienholt in his work confirms that Wienholt was a SOE agent at the time of his death in 1940, just as Anthony Clayton's inclusion of Wienholt in his Official History of the Intelligence Corps confirms that Wienholt was a British agent during WW1. Foot also notes, p 176, that due to Wingate's personality "it has hardly yet been possible to rebuilt the history of SOEs effort into Abyssinia as a coherent whole, and to present it in its proper context in the history of the war. Wingate, Wingate, Wingate has overshadowed everything ... Moreover the fact that Wingate had any connection with SOE, though well known to such well informed authors as W.E.D. Allen (who was in SOE himself at Wingate's elbow) ... had to remain secret so long as SOE itself was secret, that is, till the mid sixties."

While Wienholt's treatment at the hands of the Italians seam a bit abrupt, it needs to be realised that Wienholt had in fact been on their "wanted" list since at least 1936, when his covert activities whilst posing variously as a Journalist or Red Cross worker had him taking an active role as a military adviser in the Ethiopian retreat from Dessie to Addis Ababa. Wienholt's close "involvement" with Sylvia Pankhurst and her London based and published left wing newspaper, the New Times and Ethiopia News that was used as a vehicle for promoting the cause of Ethiopian Liberation

(20) Despatch MM/101/G/11 (Most Secret) dated Sakala, 1st December 1940; Col. D.A. Sandford to HQ. In PRO WO201/278. See paragraph 11.

(21) Gideon Force was so-named by Wingate as a consequence of his fondness of Biblical matters.

(22) Guy Turrall was later to be promoted Major in the Royal Engineers. In 1945 he was parachuted into Burma to take command of a group of Karen irregulars that were advancing on the flank of the Fourteenth Army. Awarded DSO & MC.

(23) See Fielding (1990) pp 11-26

(24) This Operational Centre never saw action, Laurens van der Post being sick and being evacuated by air to Khartoum. 24 The Centre was then effectively disbanded. Following the completion of Mission 101, van der Post was posted to the SOE Mission 43 in the Dutch East Indies. After the War he became a successful author, publishing at least 27 books. Well known, he was an adviser to Maggie Thatcher, the British Prime Minister on the Falklands' question for which she knighted him in 1981. A close friend of Prince Charles with whom he shared an interest in "Spiritual Matters." Despite being a member of the British establishment, van der Post is a somewhat controversial character from the Australian perspective. This relates to allegations of his conduct during Mission 43 following the surrender of Java and in particular to the circumstances relating to a massacre by the Japanese of Australian troops under his command. This was compounded by some of his actions taken while Governor of Java following the Japanese surrender. See Kriek, D.W.N. & Clarke, Phillip (2000) 43 Special Mission SA

(25) Captain Mark Pilkington, killed in action, Libya November 18th, 1942.

(26) Compiled from various sources, a prominent one being Allen (1943) pp 43, 80, 92, 95-96, 109

Bibliography

Allen, W E D (1933). Fascism in Relation to British History and Character. BUF Publications Ltd, London. The BUF Publications was the publishing arm of he British Union of Fascists. An interesting early paper by a later SOE operative

Allen, W E D (1943) Guerrilla War in Abyssinia. Penguin No. 439, London. Interesting and detailed account written by an acknowledged expert in mountain warfare.

Anon. (ca 1945) The Abyssinian Campaigns--The Official Story of the Conquest of Italian East Africa. Issued for the War Office by the Ministry of Information. Interesting but "error" ridden description of the campaign. Useful mainly for the numerous photographs and detailed maps.

Blackburn, Geoff (2002). Arnold Wienholt "Boys Own" Adventurer or Australian Master Spy Hesperian Press, Perth.

Del Boca, Angelo (1965). The Ethiopian War 1935-1941. The University of Chicago Press. Translated by P.D. Cummins.

Dodds-Parker, Douglas (1984) Setting Europe Ablaze Springwood Books, UK

Fielding, Xan (1990) One Man in his Time--The Life of Lieutenant Colonel NLD ("Billy") McLean DSO Macmillan, London pp xvi, 222. (This biography derived from McLean's diaries and personal papers gives an interesting description of McLean's operations within Ethiopia--including descriptions of his efforts in various Ethiopian and Sudanese brothels.)

Foot, M R D (1984) SOE. The Special Operations Executive 1940-46. British Broadcasting Commision, London pp 280

Ford, James W. & Gannes, Harry (1935) War in Africa-Italian Fascism prepares to enslave Ethiopia Workers Library Publishers, NY

Partridge, Bernard & Low, David (1936) The Tragedy of Abyssinia--What Britain feels and thinks and wants. A selection of some recent expressions of feeling and opinion by British Men and Women. League of Nations Union, London pp 96

Shirreff, David (1995) Bare Feet and Banoliers. Wingate, Sanford, the Patriots and the part they played in the Liberation of Ethiopia. The Radcliffe Press, London

GEOFF BLACKBURN (1)

(1) The author, geologist, has been a member of and has led prospecting expedition to the regions described in this report. It was as a result of talking to locals on one of these prospecting expeditions that his interest in Arnold Wienholt was established.